Harratt completes comeback to sink Southend and fire Oldham into EFL

Oldham are back in the Football League, edging Southend in a playoff final that was not just a ­thrilling contest in front of a record crowd, but a showcase of the strength of the English football pyramid.

Two goals in the second half of extra time turned things around for Micky Mellon’s side and after three years, and a period of torment that led to fans staging mock funerals for their club, Oldham can now look forward to returning to the fold of the 92.

“It’s massive, it’s monstrous to us to be able to get in there,” Mellon said having taken a third club out of non-league. “We were under a lot of pressure and we needed to go up, it makes so much difference. Everything changes now.”

For Southend and their clearly heartbroken players, there will – in the end – come the realisation that they, too, are on the way back following the dozens of winding-up orders that nearly led to the club’s ­extinction before its takeover last year. For the manager, Kevin Maher, the result left him “raw” but the performance “tells you everything about the standard of the league”.

Both men used their post-match remarks to press for a third promotion spot to League Two and the entertainment on offer and, more importantly, the size and volume of the Wembley crowd suggested they had a point. An attendance of 52,115 was the highest in history for the National League playoff, and this despite constraints on ticketing forced by disruption to transport into Wembley.

Mellon says the National League is full of teams that would “make League Two better”, and his words were born out in the match where the fitness and technical levels were impressive and the ­contrasting approaches made for a more ­interesting contest than you will regularly find at the top end of the pyramid.

View image in fullscreen Oldham players celebrate with the trophy after their National League playoff victory. Photograph: Adam Davy/PA

A clash in styles was visi­ble from the off. Oldham had already lofted a few set plays into the Southend box, some from their own half, before the Shrimpers took an early lead, the unfortunate Manny Monthé beating his own keeper with a touch of the tip of his toe as he tried to chase down a through ball from Southend’s 17‑goal right-back Gus Scott-Morriss.

The Latics should have ­equalised through the teenager Vimal Yoganathan in the 17th minute, but he placed a header wide at the far post. Joe Garner had an effort cleared off the line on the half-hour and a minute before half‑time Mike Fondop chased down two Southend clearances and burst through on goal but lifted the ball wide with only the goalkeeper Nick Hayes to beat.

The momentum was all with ­Oldham and their intense press unsettled Southend again just a minute after the restart. A corner was aimed at Monthé and he was hauled to the ground by Ben Goodliffe. The referee Elliot Bell pointed to the spot and Joe Garner, the former Ipswich and Nottingham Forest forward, stepped up coolly, sending Hayes the wrong way.

The game then slid back into equilibrium, with Southend producing decent patterns and Oldham perhaps struggling to maintain their earlier intensity. The best openings of the half only came in added time and both fell for Oldham; first a low drive from Mark Kitching that went just past the post; then an air kick from James Norwood, on as a substitute, where any connection would surely have sealed the match.

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Then came extra time and a period that resembled delirium. In the first half Southend reclaimed the lead with a wicked cross shot from Scott‑Morriss that Hudson could only parry into the path of Leon Chambers-Parillon, who duly headed home. In the second, they nearly doubled their advantage when Josh Walker cut in from the right to force a good save from Matthew Hudson.

View image in fullscreen James Norwood brings Oldham level in extra time. Photograph: Richard Pelham/Getty Images

Then Norwood drew Oldham level. Tussling with Goodliffe for a long ball he threw the defender off him, lifted the ball over the onrushing Hayes while skirting him and then finished coolly.

“This is my house!” Norwood screamed at the crowd and the atmosphere, already wild, jumped up another level. Within seconds Oldham had the final, decisive lead, Kian Harratt’s left-footed cross from way out passing under the legs of the sliding Goodliffe and somehow past Hayes too.

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